Lines of Dissonance
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: Hera doesn't talk much, but what she says without words can be pretty frightening...


Title: Lines of Dissonance

Author: SabaceanBabe

Rating: 13+

Word count: 1,200+

Characters: Helo, Hera, Athena

Spoilers: general through the end of season 3, but specifically for Maelstrom and Crossroads

Author's note: thanks to mamaboolj and rebelliousrose for the beta and a huge thank you to pangeamaru for the prompt that spawned this fic.

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"You're awfully quiet, Hera," Karl observed, looking over at his daughter, busily scribbling away on a piece of paper. He glanced back down at the flight roster he was working on, then back over at Hera, her little face about as pure an example of concentration as he'd ever seen. Smiling, he tossed the clipboard onto the table and stood, stretching out cramped muscles.

Stepping carefully over a toy and sidestepping the blanket Hera had dropped to the floor – Sharon had nearly torn him a new one the last time he'd stepped on the thing – he stood behind the little girl.

She laid down the red pencil she'd been using and took up a blue one, sparing her father the briefest moment of her attention before returning to her drawing. His smile faded as he looked over her artwork.

Hera was still just a toddler, and small for her age at that, but the drawing was surprisingly mature – and greatly disturbing. She'd had nightmares ever since Sharon had brought her back from that baseship, and the images she'd drawn looked like they must've come straight from those dreams, dreams that saw her crying and whimpering in her sleep or that caused her to wake screaming.

There were five shadowy figures, all somehow glowing with an inner light, arranged in a pattern around the yellow, red, and blue mandala that Kara had painted on her apartment wall a lifetime ago. Closing his eyes, Karl said a quick prayer, not just for his friend's soul, but for his daughter, as well. He hadn't shown either the picture of the mandala or the picture from Kara's apartment to anyone, yet his baby was drawing it now? The thing he suspected had killed his best friend now featured in his little girl's nightmares?

Feeling a little sick, he opened his eyes again and forced himself to look at the drawing. Surrounding the figures that surrounded the mandala was a building, drawn along the lines of the old temples and ruins they'd found on Kobol, a place that Hera had never been.

_She _was_ there, though, inside of Sharon…_

Squelching his own inner voice, Karl crouched down beside his daughter, suddenly feeling cold. He lightly touched Hera's shoulder and she looked up at him with Sharon's eyes.

"Hera? Is this from your dreams, baby?" She nodded, dark curls dancing with the movement. "Who are these people?" She shrugged, coloring with blue. "What are these?" He pointed to some wavy lines woven around and between the shadowy, glowing figures.

In reply, she began to hum, a tune that Karl thought he might have before, though he couldn't place where. "Music? Are these lines music, Hera?"

Smiling up at him, she nodded again and returned to her work, her little tongue stuck into her cheek, pooching it out a bit. He felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck.

"Sweetheart? Can daddy have this?"

She traded in the blue pencil for black, began to draw something in the center of the mandala.

_Gods._ "When you're done then?"

She didn't answer right away, instead adding details to the drawing. But then she laid her pencil aside, picked up the paper, and turned toward him, offering it to him. Apparently, she was finished.

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By the time Sharon returned from CAP, Karl had Hera down for a nap – a peaceful one, it appeared – and he was on the couch, working on the flight roster. She closed the hatch and began to peel off her flight suit. "I am so glad to be home," she told him as she skimmed the suit over her hips. "We got roped into helping load and unload supplies and I need a shower." She smiled at her husband. "Wanna join me?"

"You know I do," he replied, but his heart wasn't in it and Sharon got the feeling it wasn't just because neither of them would leave Hera by herself, even for a few minutes. That idea was confirmed when he leaned over and picked up a piece of paper from the coffee table. "C'mere. I want you to look at this."

Sharon took the sheet from him, cocked her head, frowned at the surreal images as she sat beside him. "Did Hera draw this?" Her tone was sharp, maybe a little sharper than she meant it to be.

"Yeah, this afternoon. These lines," he traced them without touching them, "are music, but she doesn't know who the people are."

"The Five…" she breathed, a shadow of a story half-remembered tickling at the back of her mind.

"The what?"

She stared unblinking at the drawing. "This is from her nightmares?" He nodded, clearly mystified.

"Do you know something about this?" he asked when she said nothing more.

"No. Yes." Still frowning, she looked up at him, troubled. "Not really, but maybe." She tried to chase down the memory, but it skittered away when she drew near, mocking her.

"Well, that's crystal clear." The sarcasm was a measure of his irritation, but when she looked at him, he was looking not at her, but at the drawing, and in his eyes was something she thought might be fear.

Sharon sighed, leaned into him. She needed his support, and he, without needing to be told, obliged, pulling her against his chest. "There are twelve human models of Cylon," she said, laying a palm over his heart. "I've only ever seen seven of them." She spoke slowly, choosing her words cautiously, struggling to get them out. "The others… the other five… are…" What had begun as a suggestion of pain began to grow. "Well, they're different." She picked at his tanks, wanting to tell him more, but unable to retrieve more from her mind. "That's all I know," she whispered.

"Sharon? You okay?" He squeezed her shoulders.

Her hand stilled. "Yeah, babe, I'm okay." She tried to smile. "It's just hard for me to talk about them."

"Why?"

"It's just… It just is." She didn't know how to explain to him the trouble she was having remembering what little she _did_ know of the Five, but worse, she didn't want to damage his trust in her, didn't want him thinking that those who questioned whether she had hidden programming might be right. _Frak, maybe they_ are _right._ The pain made it hard to think.

Karl kissed the top of her head. "Have you mentioned this… these Five to the Admiral?"

"No. It never came up. It never occurred to me." It never occurred to her because the Five never occurred to her. Not unless there was some catalyst, as there was now.

"For the same reason it's hard for you to talk about it?"

"Yeah. It's like there's a…" She pushed away from him so the she could look at him. "It's like there's a mental block." She focused on his eyes. If she could just stay focused on Karl's eyes, she could talk to him about this. "I start to think about them, but the thought just… slips away."

"We have to tell the Admiral about this, Sharon. It could be important."

She leaned back into him, exhausted. "I'll try." She took hold of his hand, twined her fingers with his. "I'll try." She had to try.

No. Frak that. She _would_ talk to the Admiral. She and Karl – she didn't think she could do this without him – they would both go to the Old Man. She closed her eyes. Just as soon as Hera woke from her nap, they'd take her and her drawing to Admiral Adama.


End file.
